From Abracadabra to Zombies

What's the harm? No. 5

These links and comments illustrate the harm
done by occult, paranormal, pseudoscientific, and supernatural
beliefs. The harm may be tangible and easily documented:
physical, financial, or interpersonal.

June 5, 2007. An Australian man died from extreme dehydration after
an outback purification ritual involving an attempt to experience a native
American ritual called a sweat lodge. Rowan Douglas Cooke, 37, died on
November 3, 2004, a day after being dragged unconscious from a heated tent
by his alert companions, ten of them, who thought he was
astral traveling. The group had gone to the
Gammon Ranges in South Australia's far north, for eight days of fasting,
meditation, and purification. The group intended to sweat out toxins and
prepare their spirits to enter an out-of-body
state. One of the dead man's companions, Amy Davis, told an inquest that the
surviving would-be Indians tried to revive their companions (another
unconscious man recovered) by chanting, drumming, and breaking ceramic pipes
over their bodies.

Who was it that said ignorance is bliss?

May 8, 2007. What's the harm in assuming it is true if an M.D. tells you
that you have cancer and only a short time to live? Ask
John Brandrick.
He was told two years ago that he had terminal pancreatic cancer, so he quit
his job and spent his savings. A year later he was still alive and wondering
why. His doctors told him they were wrong. He wasn't dying. He has
pancreatitis.

Imagine what he'd be saying if he'd gone to some quack after his M.D. told
him there was no hope. The quack cured me! I was dying until I started
coffee enemas and rubbing my tummy with beetle dung and carrot hair. Now
I've just got a little inflammation.

It could have been worse. He might have committed suicide to spare himself
the agony of a slow, painful death.

Moral of the story? Get a second opinion before doing anything rash when
diagnosed with a fatal disease. You don't want to find out at your autopsy
that the prognosis was wrong.

May 7, 2007. An unidentified
old woman, suspected of being an Ol' Higue, was murdered at Bare Root, East
Coast Demerara, Guyana, according to
Stabroeknews.

According to local legend, an "Old Higue" is an evil
spirit, usually a woman, who transforms into a ball of fire and sucks the
blood of people.

She must remove her skin in order to perform this
act. She can be stopped by grains of rice, which she is apparently forced
to count and by being beaten with a manicole broom.

April 7, 2007. A study
of herbal kelp supplements found arsenic poisoning when overused. UC Davis
public health expert Marc Schenker and two researchers evaluated nine
over-the-counter herbal kelp products and found higher than acceptable
arsenic levels in eight of them.*
The study, in the April issue of Environmental Health Perspectives (http://www.ehponline.org/)
reports on a 54-year-old woman who was seen at the UC Davis Occupational
Medicine Clinic following a two-year history of hair loss, fatigue, and
memory loss. Schenker says that "chronic exposure to contaminated herbal
supplements, even those with moderately elevated concentrations of arsenic,
can still be toxic. Consumers won't find such label information on these
products, so they could end up like that woman in our study who consumed
dangerously high amounts of a toxic substance without realizing it."

About harm

It is difficult to assess the harm done to society and the
world at large by the spread and encouragement of
anti-scientific, irrational, and magical thinking. It is also
difficult to measure the extent of harm done to individuals
and their families who give up thinking for themselves to
follow some guru astrologer, psychic, or cult leader.

It is
impossible to calculate the losses to those bilked because
they are ignorant of basic logical and psychological
principles.